Content Creation

Viewpoint: IPs are becoming portals. The window for traffic-driven IPs has closed; only brand and reputation can become long-term assets.

Logic chain: Platform algorithms reset every account to zero, so followers and traffic are not owned by the IP—there is no compounding effect. Early movers who gained traffic only earned higher advertising fees without accumulating real assets. As a result, traffic-driven IPs will eventually be dominated by a few giants, just like portal websites. Everyone else must shift toward buildable assets such as brand and reputation to sustain themselves.

Conditions for invalidation: If platforms open up follower relationships, data portability, or private-domain accumulation—allowing IPs to truly own their user assets—traffic-driven IPs could still hold long-term value.

Related fields: Content creation, IP, long-termism

Viewpoint:

Programming driven by natural language will become the next-generation form of expression for ordinary people; the previous generation's form of expression was short videos and live streaming.

Logic chain:

In the social media era, the right to express content was realized through filming and live streaming. In the AI era, ordinary people can use natural language to have computers directly produce digital products and services, shifting the medium of expression from content forms to executable programs. The old forms will not disappear immediately, but like portal websites, they will lose incremental growth, and the center of opportunity will shift.

Invalidation condition:

If natural language programming still requires extensive professional debugging and engineering skills, and ordinary people cannot truly use it, then “the next-generation form of expression for ordinary people” will only become a form of expression for a small circle.

Related fields:

Content creation, AI applications, natural language programming

Viewpoint: The content an IP produces online is essentially an expression of values. Users test the IP through this content, and once they identify with it, they incorporate the IP's content into their own context, thereby forming a private-domain relationship.

Logic chain: IP produces content → content carries values → users evaluate via content → evaluation passes → users adopt IP content as part of their own context → a stable circle/private domain forms.

Failure conditions: If the IP's content is inconsistent with its actual behavior, or if users lack purchasing power, the relationship is difficult to convert into sustainable commercial value.

Related fields: Content creation, marketing & traffic, business models

Viewpoint: Self-media IPs are set to resemble the portal websites of the past: the ecosystem will solidify, growth will disappear, and in the end only a few top-tier players will earn advertising revenue, while the vast majority of practitioners struggle to find new sources of growth.

Logic chain: Platform centralization intensifies the winner-take-all effect. During the portal era, a handful of giants monopolized traffic and advertising revenue, while other websites could survive but not grow. Now self-media IPs are repeating that same structure. Pure traffic-driven businesses are heading toward involution; the way out lies in migrating to the next generation of expression (AI programming) or cultivating deeper reputation.

Failure conditions: If decentralized social protocols or entirely new forms of content distribution break the platform monopoly, portalization may be delayed or even rewritten.

Related fields: Marketing and traffic, content creation, entrepreneurship

Viewpoint: Content marketing products can undergo multiple iterations and re-validation. A poor initial result doesn't rule out another attempt—but each version must retain a solid core of genuine substance.

Logic chain: As long as the core content offers real value, revisiting and adjusting the storytelling angle and entry point can gradually improve customer acquisition in subsequent attempts. However, if the content itself is hollow, repeated polishing is meaningless.

Failure conditions: The content lacks substantive value, and packaging alone cannot compensate; or the team lacks the willingness and capability to review and iterate.

Related fields: Content creation, product iteration

Opinion: AI-generated writing often lacks soul and personality. To create distinctive content with viral potential, it is essential to inject a "soil bank" — distilled from all the creator's past material and containing memorable quotes, business insights, and more — into the writing system.

Logic chain: The creator's outputs, such as articles, recordings, and short videos, are structurally distilled into a repository of key viewpoints and memorable quotes and a repository of business judgments. The AI then creates based on these repositories, allowing its output to reflect the creator's genuine thinking and style, avoiding generic templates.

Failure conditions: If the creator lacks a strong point of view, or if the content demand is mainly factual aggregation, over-reliance on a personal bank increases complexity. When general-purpose models have extremely strong imitation capabilities, this step could be replaced.

Related fields: Content creation, AI applications.

Viewpoint: In documentary-style video editing, different scenes should not share the same audio track, and any real client names or other private information must be redacted to preserve authenticity and legal safety.

Logic Chain: Reusing an audio track across scenes makes viewers aware of scene stitching, undermining authenticity. Exposing real client information not only carries legal risks but also makes the content seem unprofessional and potentially leaks confidential data.

Failure Conditions: If the video is explicitly non-documentary fiction, the negative impact of repeated audio tracks is smaller; however, privacy redaction should be observed regardless of genre.

Related Fields: Content creation, video production

Point: The appeal of vlogs lies in authentic documentation. Information should be conveyed indirectly through lifelike conversation, rather than having subjects straightforwardly explain key details as if reading from a script—otherwise, viewers will be pulled out of the experience.

Logic: In real life, people don't speak in explanatory language. Deliberately inserting expository lines undermines the documentary feel. Viewers are keenly sensitive to traces of performance, which reduces trust and engagement.

When it fails: Tutorial-style vlogs may require direct explanation, but documentary-style vlogs must adhere to the principle of natural conversation. If the content is a scripted short drama, that's a different matter.

Related fields: Content creation, video production

Viewpoint: By inviting business school professors to participate and interviewing the family and upbringing stories of listed company founders (such as topics like entrepreneurial couples and children's education), business content can gain greater human depth and topical appeal, enhancing its spreadability and IP potential.

Logic chain: Business bloggers should not only discuss business logic but also dig into personal stories and conflicts—for example, how a listed company chairman and his wife balance entrepreneurship and family, or how their son dreams of becoming a game coach but is forced into an internship. This kind of content naturally carries viral potential, while endorsement from business school professors boosts professional credibility, attracts high-quality attention, and lays the groundwork for future distribution and collaboration.

Failure conditions: If interviewees are unwilling to open up about private stories, or if mishandled content leads to public relations risks, the effect may backfire; over-consuming personal privacy can also undermine trust.

Related fields: Content creation, education and learning, entrepreneurship

Viewpoint: Building a personal brand around "making money" tends to attract followers with low purchasing power who are also vulnerable to scams. By repositioning yourself as a high-end business creator—sharing business case studies, brand stories, and similar content—you can reach corporate decision-makers with real budgets and achieve a leap in value.

Logic Chain: The audience drawn to money-making content typically has limited annual consumption power (at most 50,000 yuan) and often brings unproductive inquiries or even controversy. In contrast, positioning yourself as a business commentator who shares insights from listed-company experience, brand growth, and new-consumer trends can attract new brands and entrepreneurs with actual budgets, raising your personal brand premium and expanding collaboration opportunities.

Failure Conditions: If the creator lacks real business experience, produces shallow content, or fails to consistently access high-quality case studies, the positioning upgrade may remain empty talk. Additionally, you must balance professionalism with mass appeal—otherwise, the content may become too niche and lose its audience.

Related Fields: Personal growth, content creation, entrepreneurship

Perspective: Even if a product is deeply loved by customers, without well-packaged case studies, it is difficult to spread the word externally or convince new clients. By leveraging specialized talent to turn successful practices into communicable business stories, companies can effectively build credibility and reduce the cost of customer acquisition.

Logic Chain: Many enterprise clients "love the product but cannot write case studies," which points to a break in value transfer. Recruiting people with content skills (such as micro-influencers on platforms like Xiaohongshu) to turn client practices into benchmark cases—combined with founder interviews, podcasts, and other formats—can both showcase the product's impact and help clients with their own brand exposure, creating mutual benefit. Case studies are especially persuasive for emerging brands, as they lower the perceived risk of decision-making.

Failure Conditions: When the match between the case study and the target client is low, the content lacks authenticity, or the distribution channels are insufficient, the leverage effect of case studies diminishes significantly. If cases are created merely for the sake of packaging without substantive performance data, they will also fail.

Related Fields: Marketing & Traffic, Product & Operations, Content Creation

Viewpoint: When taking on AI-related advertising, creators need to combine a degree of professionalism (so clients find them reliable) with relatability (so audiences find them trustworthy), forming a compound positioning.

Chain of reasoning: AI ads often involve product demonstrations and educational content. Brands want to convey professionalism and build trust; at the same time, an organic, authentic, unpolished feel can close the distance with users and strengthen persuasiveness. The combination of these two traits makes it easier to win higher-value ad deals.

Failure condition: If the ad category leans entirely toward emotion or entertainment, the demand for professionalism is not high, and the importance of professional endorsement decreases.

Related fields: Content creation, marketing and traffic, AI applications.

Viewpoint: To secure high-ticket ad deals and keep raising rates, a personal brand must meet a certain baseline in visual presentation and professionalism; a purely raw, organic feel is not enough.

Logic chain: Clients have clear requirements for video quality, lighting, and visual texture, especially in categories like AI that require hands-on demonstrations. At the same time, the creator must retain an authentic, approachable personal style, forming a combined “professional + organic” positioning; only then are they seen by advertisers as a cost-effective choice.

Failure condition: If the focus is on low-ticket, pure talking-head, or performance-based ads, clients’ requirements for visuals and professionalism may drop significantly.

Related fields: content creation, marketing, and traffic.

Viewpoint: Internal training videos recorded with non-professional equipment (webcam + conferencing software) should intentionally lower video quality and reduce file size to accommodate distribution constraints.

Reasoning: These videos are essentially online lecture content: distribution channels are narrow, viewers have low clarity requirements, and high video quality brings little practical benefit. A one-and-a-half-hour video reaching several gigabytes is unreasonable; compressing it to a few hundred megabytes is enough to convey the content.

When this does not apply: High video quality should be maintained only when the content needs to show fine operations or design details, or when brand image requires high definition.

Related fields: Content creation, product and operations

Viewpoint: Using AI to analyze viral video structures can help generate and edit similar template-based content, improving the efficiency of growing small accounts.

Logic chain: This type of content is highly formulaic, so AI can learn and produce it, saving manual effort. However, the results need to be tested in practice; you can first try AI assistance before deciding whether to rely on it entirely.

Failure conditions: AI-generated content lacks distinctiveness and may be judged by the platform as low-quality content, resulting in limited reach. Once templates become outdated, AI cannot quickly adapt to new trends.

Related fields: AI content creation, template-based production, efficiency improvement

Viewpoint: When planning 12 shareholder mini-sessions, arranging four solo sessions led by the lead host, four by co-initiator A, and four by co-initiator B can avoid the fatigue of one person handling all the content while giving the audience diverse perspectives.

Logic chain: With the total number of sessions fixed, rotating the lead among the three core figures reduces each person's delivery burden to one-third and actually increases the richness of the content. The audience can hear the lead host's independent views while also experiencing the interplay among different guests.

Failure conditions: If the audience comes only for the lead host, or if the quality of guest content cannot be controlled, the rotation system may dilute the brand's appeal.

Related fields: content creation, paid knowledge.

Viewpoint: Content creators or experts tend to fall into over-delivery in collaborations, continually increasing their input without receiving equivalent returns, which eventually leads to psychological imbalance.

Logic chain: Because of a personal pursuit of quality or difficulty saying no, they keep investing in stages where no compensation has been agreed, such as repeatedly polishing an outline, and the actual effort far exceeds expectations. But the collaborator does not correspondingly increase pay, so the creator feels undervalued or undersold and builds up resentment. When pressure crosses a threshold, their emotions may suddenly break down.

Where it fails: If the collaborator gives timely and equivalent compensation for extra input, or if both parties set clear work boundaries and stop-loss mechanisms in advance, the resentment and breakdown will not be triggered.

Related fields: Content creation, personal growth

Viewpoint: For personal-brand IPs with high-ticket offerings or in certain age brackets, directly stating income figures—such as “earning one million a year”—when demonstrating strength can easily look clumsy or provoke controversy. Instead, they should reveal income and strength indirectly by showing physical spaces (for example, a lavishly renovated photo studio), social collaboration relationships (such as whom they work with and what they are thinking about), and major “events” currently underway.

Logic chain: Numeric labels are sensitive and tend to create enemies. In the knowledge monetization space especially, they can easily be labeled as ripping people off. For IPs aged 35 or older, or those with a more mature positioning, talking about specific income seems less composed. Showing a high-rent studio, a workspace currently under renovation, and close cooperation with industry elites lets users reverse-engineer and estimate the person’s income level. A conclusion reached by users themselves is more persuasive and impactful than an IP’s self-reported claims.

Failure conditions: If this “humblebrag” style of display goes too far, it may provoke resentment toward wealth. If the displayed assets contradict the “hard-working striver” persona, it can also cause the persona to collapse. It requires that the physical assets or events displayed are real business investments and cannot be faked.

Related fields: Marketing and traffic, content creation, personal growth.

Viewpoint: When an IP founder moves beyond their original grassroots identity and loses their raw material for expression, they should not dwell on recounting past hardships or directly flaunting income figures. Instead, they should build an event-driven narrative about “starting a new venture from 0 to 1” (such as opening a studio), leading their audience to witness the growth together.

Logic chain: The relationship between an IP and its audience needs both distance and closeness. Simply talking about “earning one million a year” comes across as tacky and attracts backlash, because it will be immediately labeled as “selling courses to rip people off.” By contrast, telling the story of “as a small-town girl, I am going through the worries and growth of opening a studio” is a narrative that turns vulnerability into a sense of companionship. It can showcase the founder’s strength (entrepreneurial courage and resources) while allowing the audience—small-town girls who admire strength—to project that “she is one of us, just like me, and I can be like her too.” This narrative naturally accommodates more commercial categories (home goods, consumer products, etc.).

Failure conditions: If the IP founder has a psychological block about this narrative (feeling that it is hypocritical or feeling ashamed to reveal the process), forcing it will distort the content and cause it to lose sincerity. Also, if there are no real actions to support the event (for example, only talking about opening a studio without any substantive progress), the narrative will quickly collapse and backfire on trust.

Related fields: Content creation, personal growth, marketing and traffic.

Viewpoint: Treat in-person events as formal launch events when planning. The content framework, duration, speaker roles, materials, and other elements must be designed in advance to avoid ad-libbing that leads to results far below expectations (as in some graduation events).

Logic chain: Unstructured events are prone to pacing problems, unclear messaging, and awkward interactions. Structured planning includes determining the total duration (possibly aiming for two 90-minute sessions), clarifying the main presenter (solo or with support), designing a flow of opening—content release—user testimonials—closing CTA, and preparing materials such as cue cards. This rigor makes the event feel professional and helps achieve communication and conversion goals.

Failure conditions: Over-planning leads to rigid content, or the presenter is unable to perform within the framework; insufficient material preparation can still affect the on-site experience.

Related fields: content creation, event operations, launch event planning.